Asheville Day Trip

I am so thankful to live in an area where I can be in the mountains in under two hours or on the beach in three. My husband and I are big fans of day trips where we can spend the day exploring a new or beloved town and still get to sleep in our own bed that night. One of our goals for the year was to do more of these trips and explore more of our surrounding area. We had some friends join us for a day trip to Asheville, NC back in January of this year and we had such a good time! If you're a fan of craft beer, you will find no shortage of things to do in Asheville. Here's what we did:

We grabbed breakfast just outside of town and hit the road around 9am. It took under two hours to get to Asheville, and we decided 11am was a respectable time to have our first beer. Our first stop was Burial Beer. The beers are delicious but the place was cramped and already packed when we got there. We lucked out and found a place to sit for a bit.

Afterwards, we headed to Wicked Weed's Funkatorium close by. Although the space was five times as large as Burial, it was even more packed. Given it was a rainy Saturday, we were not surprised that seemingly everyone in downtown Asheville was hiding out in the local breweries. So we went on to Twin Leaf Brewery down the road and it did not disappoint. 

At this point we were in need of sustenance, so we ventured down the street to Vortex Doughnuts and grabbed a half-dozen to split between us. Sadly, I did not even capture a photo of the donuts before they were gone. We loved Vortex because of the unique flavors and their numerous vegan options. It was the sugar rush we needed to get us through the afternoon - pit stops at ZaPow and my favorite place, Battery Park Book Exchange.

One of the main reasons we were wanting to go to Asheville was to have dinner at Chai Pani. Chai Pani is an Indian street food restaurant from James Beard nominated chef Meherwan Irani. My husband is a huge fan, so this was a must-visit for us. I was blown away. We shared bhel puri and okra fries, and I devoured the butter chicken thali. We ended the meal with chais. 

Despite the rain, it was really the perfect day, and we're already planning our next trip!